NIMA supplies over €25b for imports of goods, services since April 2018

Iran’s domestic Forex Management Integrated System (locally known as NIMA) has supplied over €25 billion for imports of goods and services since it was launched in April 2018 up to February 1, 2020, IRNA reported.

NIMA, which seeks to boost transparency, create competitiveness among exchange shops and a secure environment for traders, is a new chance for importers to supply their required foreign currency without specific problems and for exporters to re-inject their earned foreign currency to the domestic forex market. It was inaugurated to allow exporters of non-oil commodities to sell their foreign currency earnings to importers of consumer products.

According to the Governor of Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Abdolnasser Hemmati, establishing direct communication between importers and exporters has significantly increased the volume of exchanges in the NIMA system during the past few months.

In late May 2019, CBI unveiled a directive package that provided the country’s exporters with guidelines about how they should re-inject their foreign currency incomes into the country’s economy.

Based on the directive, for the petrochemical sector, the exporters should present at least 60 percent of their foreign currency incomes into NIMA, and a maximum 10 percent could be injected into the financial system in the form of hard currency and the rest could be used for importing necessary goods.

As for other exporters, at least 50 percent of the total earnings should be presented at the NIMA system and a maximum of 20 percent could be distributed in form of hard currency and the rest can be used for imports.

The instructions aimed to lead the export revenues from the non-oil exports back into the country’s economy through NIMA, mandate all the exporters of goods and services to guarantee to bring back to the country the foreign currency amount allocated to them by the government at lower prices than the free market.

source: Tehran Times